Free Republic

COPENHAGEN — As President Barack Obama jetted off to save the climate talks Thursday night, his allies at home and overseas were engaged in another rescue mission of sorts: guarding his prestige from taking a hit if the talks flop. Obama’s aides have spent weeks tamping down expectations that he can be the decisive factor at COP-15, going so far as to schedule his visit during the doldrums of the conference’s first week until a backlash forced them to reschedule him for an appearance at Friday’s finale. On Thursday night, senior administration officials touted the day’s modest progress after Secretary...

On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits. In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.” “I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s...

Attorney General Holder has announced that he intends to bring the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in Federal Court in New York City. AG Holder made this decision in part becasue he believes the 9/11 attacks were primarily against citizens, and therefore should be held in a federal court. 9/11 was an act of war by a non state actor, typically defined as terrorism. The purpose of the attack was not to kill American citizens. The attack was designed to weaken the United States ability to respond to the longer term efforts efforts by Osama bin Laden and...

So much of an idiot, in fact, that according to Tapper’s source, at least one Japanese paper isn’t running the photo out of embarrassment. This tool actually groveled himself into a minor international incident. The good news for O-bots? It wasn’t unprecedented. Nixon evidently made a modest bow to Hirohito in the early 70s. The bad news? “Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel. “Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first...

One of President Obama's major campaign promises was to improve the United States reputation abroad. I wonder if he meant that he was going to make America the butt of the World's Jokes. Yesterday the POTUS had another Protocol faux pas by bowing down to Japanese Emperor Akihito, the second time he bowed down to a world leader (King Fahd of Saudi Arabia was the first). By subordinating himself to other world leaders the President has damaged the prestige of the office he holds and of the country. The press in other countries are now running stories with headlines calling...

Bad enough that Obama bowed down to another head of state yesterday. Even worse that he did not bother to learn how one bows in Japan, and just winged it. I agree with Scott Johnson, Steve Gilbert, Andrew Malcom, and many others that the President of the United States should not be bowing before any head of state. But unlike these astute observers, I actually know a little something about the art of the bow in Japan, having lived in Japan four different times on a resident visa, taught East Asian Studies at Harvard, and counseled many hundreds of American,...

It's one thing to avoid the "terrorist" label when reporting on Ft. Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan. It's quite another to say that those who do use it are making a political calculation to "paint the Democrats as soft terror." Yet that's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow insisted on her Nov. 11 broadcast. Maddow launched into a minute-and-a-half soliloquy on why it is bad for the Democratic Party when commentators label Hasan a "terrorist." She even attempted to make the case on Hasan's behalf against a terrorism label. Who needs a legal team when you have friends like Maddow and Chris...

President Obama has staked his reputation on being a human rights guru to people around the world. But his remarks at Tuesday's news conference and behavior since taking office have instead exposed a different persona--that of human rights charlatan. On June 15, three days after the phony Iranian elections and the same day that seven Iranian demonstrators were murdered, Obama's UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, made a speech in Vienna promoting the Saint Obama vision: "The responsibility to protect is a duty that I feel deeply. … We must prepare for the likelihood that we will again face the worst impulses...

BBC LATEST: Headline Only US President Obama Says He Will Not Rush "Solemn Decision" To Commit Troops To Afghanistan

Benjamin Disraeli's most famous advice to aspiring politicians was: "Never complain and never explain." For the greatest orator of our time, a man who makes Churchill, Lincoln and Henry V at Agincourt look like first-round rejects on "Orating With The Stars," Barack Obama seems to have pretty much given up on the explaining side. He tried it with health care with speech after speech after exclusive interview for months on end, and the more he explained the more unpopular the whole racket got. So he declared that the time for explaining is over, and it's time to sign on or...

WHY LIBERALS ARE INCAPABLE OF DEFENDING AMERICA Behind The Lines By Dr. Jack Wheeler Friday, October 14, 2005 [This is the text of a speech I gave yesterday, October 16, at the Accuracy in Media luncheon in Washington DC. It was taped by C-Span and will be nationally broadcast at various times over the C-Span network – check www.c-span.org for schedules. Video/DVD copies of the speech may be ordered via the C-Span website. I began the speech by holding up an actual shrunken head.] I’d like to show you a concrete example of why liberals cannot defend their country. This...

Here is video of Texas Sen. John Cornyn today on Face the Nation where he said President Obama's "deliberation" in making a decision on whether to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal the troops he needs to win in Afghanistan is now looking like "indecisiveness," and is "emboldening our enemies." He also said it causes our allies to "question our resolve." “Deliberation is a good thing when it comes to fighting wars, but we’ve been at war for eight years in Afghanistan following 9/11… At some point deliberation begins to look more like indecisiveness, which then becomes a way of emboldening our...

The Danger of Obama's Dithering His foreign policy brings to mind Jimmy Carter, or perhaps Ethelred the Unready. By John R. Bolton October 18, 2009 Weakness in American foreign policy in one region often invites challenges elsewhere, because our adversaries carefully follow diminished American resolve. Similarly, presidential indecisiveness, whether because of uncertainty or internal political struggles, signals that the United States may not respond to international challenges in clear and coherent ways. Taken together, weakness and indecisiveness have proved historically to be a toxic combination for America's global interests. That is exactly the combination we now see under President Obama....

The last time the Dalai Lama visited Washington, President George W. Bush presented the exiled Tibetan leader with the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony on Capitol Hill. Now the Dalai Lama cannot even get a private meeting with President Obama. The only winner in this rebuff is communist China.

It’s like the heady days of Paris, 2005. This week, the French ruling clique is having a go at America, pouring vintage disdain on American puissance — and finding that power woefully misapplied. This was all supposed to change under Pres. Barack Obama, the first U.S. president in history to take a global lap just to say he’s sorry for his country’s behavior. His plan was to reinvent America’s image in the world. He became an overnight sensation in Paris, delighting les médiacrates with his easy dismissal of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni. Months later,...

It is shameful when the White House is accused of betrayal by close allies in eastern and central Europe, but utterly humiliating when even the Elysee Palace thinks the United States has been transformed from a lion to a lamb in the face of mounting global threats. As The Wall Street Journal reported this morning, French president Nicolas Sarkozy was less than impressed with Barack Obama’s performance last week in the face of the Iranian nuclear crisis. According to the paper, Washington urged Paris to delete key sections of Sarkozy’s UN speech that were critical of Iran and supposedly threatened...

The right is calling Obama weak, but his wily foreign policy is paying off The spluttering of the American right — and some European conservatives — over Barack Obama’s foreign policy reached a new level of vituperation last week. “Is Obama naive?” pondered Michael Ledeen at National Review. “I don’t think so. I think that he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America.” Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “[Obama’s] appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear-free world ... have all won him plaudits in the large...

WMD: "We must stop the spread of nuclear weapons," the president implored the U.N. Almost on cue, Iran announced its second nuclear plant and Brazil talked up its own bomb. U.S. weakness gets noticed. President Obama delivered numerous applause lines before the United Nations last week, like this one regarding nuclear proliferation: "Those nations that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences." But what consequences? Only the most crippling of sanctions, like a concerted oil export and gasoline import embargo, would constitute real punishment for Iran, for instance. And we're nowhere near getting that to happen. Which...

If Zbigniew Brzezinski had his way, the US would go to war against Israel to defend Iran's nuclear installations. In an interview with the Daily Beast Web site last weekend, the man who served as former US president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser said, "They [IAF fighter jets] have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? We have to be serious about denying them that right. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not." Brzezinski has long distinguished himself as...

Everybody is saying no to the American president these days. And it's not just that they're saying no, it's also the way they're saying no. The Saudis twice said no to his request for normalization gestures towards Israel (at Barack Obama's meeting with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, and in Washington at meetings with Hillary Clinton). Who says no to the American president twice? What must they think of Obama in the desert kingdom? The North Koreans said no to repeated attempts at talks, by test-launching long-range missiles in April; Russia and China keep on saying no to tougher sanctions...

To ensure everyone likes the USA, President Obama’s approach is to set an example – for Russia, Iran, North Korea and other nuclear states – by cutting our own nuke arsenal and denying missile defense systems for Poland and the Czech Republic. There will be no peace without strength.

<p>Shortly after the Group of 20 summit concluded in London in April, Nicolas Sarkozy blurted out to a small group of advisers a question that weighed on him as he watched President Obama glad-hand his way through the gathering: "Est-il faible?" (Is he weak?) Sarkozy did not answer his own blunt query...</p>

Lockerbie Victim's Mom Calls Obama Response 'Soft' Susan Cohen 'Furious & Sick' Over Bomber's Release In Scotland CBS News Interactive: Pan Am Flight 103 The mother of a young woman killed in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 was blunt in her anger over seeing the mastermind of the attack return home to cheering crowds. "I was furious and I was sick," Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora, then 20, died on the flight. Cohen reserved some of her anger toward the Obama administration as well. Thursday, President Obama called the release of Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi...

It's official. The United States is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" nor locked in a "global war." President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official on Thursday declared as unacceptable the terms crafted by the George W. Bush administration.

Yes there is political significance of a girly pitch

In which CNN totally redeems itself for the other mom-themed political video they foisted on us today. Watch closely here and you’ll see the tweet that was sent to me last night — and which I linked in our post about The One throwing out the first pitch — flash by for a second or two. Good lord: Did Hot Air launch the Obama “mom jeans” meme? Behold my proudest moment as a blogger, my friends.

There is a center field camera angle of Obama's ceremonial first pitch about 28 seconds into the video.

Some pundits are using President Barack Obama's throwing out the first pitch at the 2009 All Stars Baseball game to find a new way to criticize him. Apparently, though it was not readily apparent to TV audience, Obama throws like a girl. The account by Examiner Larry Amon was typical. "Yesterday, at the major league all star game President Obama threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Now politically this doesn't matter much but for a president who has carefully crafted his image, especially as a sports enthusiast, it's worth noting that President Obama is not much of a baseball player....

CNN actually did a hit piece on Obama's jeans, she'll probably get canned...

The more debatable point from the historic moment was the reception the President was afforded by the self-described "best fans in baseball." Though Obama was roundly cheered by the All-Star fans, his live presence still didn't attract the applause that George W. Bush did during a taped announcement by the four previous Presidents before the game and some boos could even be heard among the cheers.

The signing ceremony in Moscow was a grand affair. For Barack Obama, foreign policy neophyte and “reset” man, the arms reduction agreement had a Kissingerian air. A fine feather in his cap. And our president likes his plumage. Unfortunately for the United States, the country Obama represents, the prospective treaty is useless at best, detrimental at worst. Useless because the level of offensive nuclear weaponry, the subject of the U.S.-Russia “Joint Understanding,” is an irrelevance. We could today terminate all such negotiations, invite the Russians to build as many warheads as they want, and profitably watch them spend themselves into...

Don’t shoot back! Don’t pick the poppies! And don’t bother the women and men in burqas! These are the new rules of engagement for leathernecks in Afghanistan. Sound incredible? They’re true. Welcome to the modern Marine Corps under Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama On July 1, the U.S. military initiated Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Helmand Province by 4,000 Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers. “Strike of the Sword” represents the first military operation to be ordered by President Obama. The purpose of the campaign is to flush out Taliban operatives from southern Afghanistan in order...

As he promised last year, Barack Obama has brought climate change and healthcare reform to the centre of the nation’s attention. As well as evangelising, he is pressing Congress to act. Last week the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill to curb carbon emissions, a measure that, if enacted, would touch every part of the US economy. Both House and Senate have drafted far-reaching healthcare bills, with stunning price tags. Mr Obama aims to keep his promises, which is admirable. Unfortunately, there is a problem. This is not, as many Republicans argue, that neither issue requires forthright action....

It isn't exactly like dancing on Neda's grave, but it's close enough to make decent people uncomfortable...At a news conference Tuesday, President Barack Obama condemned the "threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days," but stopped short of criticizing the stolen election...

Republican senators slammed President Obama as "timid" Sunday for not strongly supporting Iran's protesters. Obama has called on Iran to halt its violent crackdown, but declined to make a full-throated endorsement of the protesters, saying he would undermine them if America seemed to be "meddling." Some Republicans weren't buying it. "The President of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on ABC. "He's been timid and passive more than I wouldlike." Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told CNN that Obama should be more forceful. "If America stands for democracy," he...

It’s not just Republicans who are unhappy with President Obama’s muted response to what’s happening in Iran. There’s apparently an internal divide at the White House over how tough or not Obama should be. According to the New York Times this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden “would like to strike a stronger tone in support of protestors” while “other White House officials have counseled a more cautious approach.” Obama has clearly sided with the latter, saying he doesn’t want to be seen as “meddling” in the Iranian elections. What’s interesting to your Gaggler is...

Dana Rohrabacher slams the President also for not speaking up for the people of Iran who are risking their lives..

JUNE 18, 2009 Obama's Iran Abdication Democracy interferes with his nuclear diplomacy script. The President yesterday denounced the "extent of the fraud" and the "shocking" and "brutal" response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days. "These elections are an atrocity," he said. "If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?" The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy. The President who spoke those words was...

The President yesterday denounced the "extent of the fraud" and the "shocking" and "brutal" response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days. "These elections are an atrocity," he said. "If Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?" The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and...stood up for Iranian democracy. The President who spoke those words was France's Nicolas Sarkozy. The French are hardly known for their idealistic foreign policy and moral fortitude. Then again many global...

IT must have been the viewing angle: The despots who run Iran somehow missed the halo gracing President Obama during his recent sermon to the Muslim world. The ruling mullahs' contemptuous handling of Iran's presidential election was their response to "the Cairo effect" announced a tad prematurely by the White House. Our president's public flagellation of America only emboldened the junta in Tehran -- leaving Iran's power brokers more defiant, determined and dismissive than they've been in years. And the strongest response Obama can muster to the blood in Tehran's streets is: "I am deeply troubled by the violence that...

Wow: A FOX News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been "about right" and 3 percent think he has been too tough. Sizable majorities of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (78 percent) and independents (61 percent) agree Obama should be tougher on North Korea. Among those voters who backed Obama in the 2008 presidential election, 59 percent say he has not been tough enough . . .

Note well: The poll was conducted before The One’s radio silence on Iran’s meltdown. A FOX News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been “about right” and 3 percent think he has been too tough… On Iran, the findings are almost identical: 66 percent overall say Obama has not been tough enough, including 57 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents.

Most Americans -- including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents -- say President Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea and Iran. A FOX News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been "about right" and 3 percent think he has been too tough. Sizable majorities of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (78 percent) and independents (61 percent) agree Obama should be tougher on North Korea. Among those voters who backed Obama in the 2008 presidential election,...

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) says defense cuts are a "show of weakness" and not a "sign of strength."

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) commented on Pres. Obama's address at Cairo University addressing the Muslim world, saying that offering to speak with Iran makes the U.S look "weak."

North Korea’s recent underground detonation of a nuclear weapon and multiple missile launches, as well as its declaration that the 1953 armistice that effectively ended the Korean war “no longer applies,” have presented President Barack Obama with just the sort of “generated international crisis” then-vice presidential nominee Joe Biden promised supporters would come along to “test” the foreign policy neophyte in his first months in office. Unfortunately, the statements and actions Obama has taken so far in response to the communist state’s latest series of provocations suggest he has little idea how to deal with such a situation - particularly...

North Korea celebrated Memorial Day with an underground test of a nuclear weapon reportedly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. With that and a series of missile launches, the regime in Pyongyang has sent an unmistakable signal: The Hermit Kingdom has nothing but contempt for the so-called "international community" and the empty rhetoric and diplomatic posturing that usually precede new rewards for the North's bad behavior... Until now (Japan and South Korea) have nestled under the U.S. nuclear umbrella...made possible by what is known in the national-security community as "extended deterrence." Thanks to the credibility of U.S. security...

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Barack Obama. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu rejected President Pantywaist’s settlement freeze proposal. Bibi told Bam Bam that his government was not amenable to putting limitations on building Jewish settlements in the capital of Israel. Obama responded by offering to immediately freeze all US settlements in Washington, DC as a goodwill gesture toward Hamas. Still stinging from Netanyahu’s rebuff, Obama made the harebrained decision to challenge Dick Cheney to a debate on, of all things, foreign policy. Someone on Team O was astute enough to realize that TOTUS would not be well...

President Obama has targeted the Department of Defense to absorb more than 80 percent of the cuts he has proposed in next year's budget for discretionary programs. In its "Terminations, Reductions and Savings" booklet, which the administration released Thursday, the White House highlighted the results of the president's line-by-line scrubbing of the federal budget. The administration identified $11.5 billion in discretionary program terminations and reductions for next year. The Defense Department will take a $9.4 billion hit, constituting 82 percent of the cuts. Defense accounts for 49 percent of spending on discretionary programs, which Congress must fund each year. The...